In this photo taken by a drone, cleanup continues in the area where the ruptured Keystone pipeline dumped oil into a creek in Washington County, Kan., Friday, Dec. 9, 2022. TOPEKA, Kan. — — The operator of a pipeline that spilled about 14,000 bathtubs' worth of heavy crude oil into a northeastern Kansas creek said Friday that it has permission from U.S. government regulators to reopen the repaired segment where the rupture occurred.
“This will take several days,” the company said in a statement. “We will continue to prioritize the safety of people and the environment.”forced the company to shut down the Keystone system and dumped about 14,000 barrels of crude into a creek running through rural pastureland in Washington County, about 150 miles northwest of Kansas City. Each barrel is 42 gallons, the size of a household bathtub.
TC Energy reopened most of the 2,700-mile Keystone system last week. The system carries crude oil extracted from tar sands in western Canada to the Gulf Coast, with a spur also moving crude to south-central Illinois.and larger than 22 previous spills on the Keystone system combined, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data. The company received permission to reopen the pipeline across Kansas and into northern Oklahoma from the Department of Transportation's pipeline safety arm.
The company has not identified the Kansas spill's cause. Zack Pistora, who lobbies at the Kansas Statehouse for the Sierra Club, said the pipeline segment shouldn't reopen until the cause is known.The company said it has removed the ruptured pipeline section and sent it to an independent lab for analysis. It also said it had recovered almost 7,600 barrels of oil, a little more than half of what was leaked.